Albatross

by Terry Fallis

  “Yes, you will. And I want to be there when you get it,” I said.

  I could never have afforded a CH92 on my own, but my parents had given me the transparent blue model for my last birthday. I had a few other pens in my fledgling collection, but the CH92 had become my go-to, everyday-carry pen. I mean, why would I write with a scratchy Noodler’s Ahab when I could opt for the smooth gold nib of the Pilot?

  “What have you got inked?” I asked.

  She pulled a small leather sleeve from her backpack and slid out a matte black pen with a big wire clip on the cap. It was her Lamy Safari with a medium steel nib.

  “That’s two days in a row for the Safari,” I continued. “What gives?”

  “I’ve got it running so smoothly now that it’s hard to switch it out.”

  “I hear you,” I replied. “Oh, and happy anniversary.”

  “And to you,” she said with a high-wattage smile that was so radiant, it had a physical effect on me. I could feel it in my heart, and in my stomach, and…well, let’s leave it at that.

  We’d met in English class exactly one year before, on the first day of school. I was just sitting there, minding my own business and writing the date at the top of my page with my Blue Pilot Prera (I like Pilot fountain pens, if that wasn’t already clear). As providence would have it, Alli sat at the desk next to mine. My aforementioned heart, or my stomach, or perhaps some other internal organ, did a little triple salchow when two things happened in quick succession. First, she looked right at me and smiled. Then she uncapped a pink Platinum Preppy and started writing in her notebook. She was also very cute, tending towards beautiful. Her brown hair was short, her denim-clad legs were long, and everything in between, including her brain, was a little out of my league. And by “a little out of my league,” I probably mean “way out of my league.” But I was feeling optimistic that day.

  I’d never met anyone else, let alone a potential girlfriend, who adored fountain pens as much as I did. Ink, too. That first day, we were engaged in writing what our teacher called a “personal reflection.” I could tell at a glance she had inked her Preppy with Diamine Ancient Copper. I stole another look at her page but she caught me and moved her arm to block my view. I shook my head. I wasn’t trying to copy her. Why would I do that? It was a personal reflection, not a multiple-choice math quiz.

  “I wasn’t reading your piece,” I whispered. “I was admiring your taste in ink.”

  To drive home my point, I pulled a bottle of the very same Diamine Ancient Copper from my backpack and placed it on my desk, the label facing towards her. I then used my hands like a Price Is Right model to direct her gaze to the ink. Her eyes widened, and she giggled at my hand antics.

  “Allison Clarkson, but most people call me Alli,” she whispered.

  “Adam Coryell. Most people call me, um, Adam.”

  She laughed again, and that was that.

  “Do you think it means anything that we have the same initials?” I asked.

  “Probably not,” she replied. “But it’s early days.”

  “Right.”

  If the fountain pen connection weren’t enough, I really fell hard when, shortly after we met, she revealed a passion for creative writing that rivalled my own. And we both wanted to be writers. When we learned this about one another, everything seemed to fall into place.

  Allison was new to the school but carried herself like she’d been there for years. She wasn’t part of the mega-popular stratum within the school—you know, the “in” crowd—but it seemed to be her choice. She was just very comfortable in her own skin for someone so young.

  I wasn’t exactly in the “cool kids” clique either, but neither was I in the no-hopers geek society. I was average. Tall and skinny, but with good hair—not that I’m blowing my own horn, let alone hair. Think Ryan Reynolds—his hair, I mean, not his Hollywood face. I guess my face was fine, but when you see it, what springs to mind is nice boy, maybe future accountant, but not movie star, not quarterback, not Mr. Popularity.

  But somehow, it all seemed to work with Alli. The constellations aligned—or whatever that metaphor is—and we became inseparable. We walked to and from school together most days, even though it took me out of my way. We’d eat lunch together in the cafeteria, hang out at each other’s lockers, sit next to one another when we shared classes. You know, the high school definition of inseparable. I kept waiting for the wheels to fall off. But they never did—well, not then, anyway. We may have veered onto the soft shoulder a few times, but we somehow always made it safely back onto the road and were still together a year later.

  We had a few minutes before our Writer’s Craft class started. We were both quite excited about the course, but we’d learned via email a few days earlier that the teacher assigned to lead the class had unexpectedly taken a medical leave. That didn’t sound promising, for the teacher or for us. Neither of us knew who had drawn the short straw, but we’d know soon enough.

  “Hey, you’re up,” Alli said, and handed over a thick spiral notebook.

  I opened the book and found my way to the start of the most recent chapter. There I found Alli’s neat and slanted cursive. The ink was a light but still rich blue. In brackets before the chapter started, she’d written, TWSBI Eco, Iroshizuku Kon-Peki, noting the pen type and ink used. It was a thing fountain pen nerds routinely did. I closed the notebook and slipped it into my backpack.

  “Okay, great. I’ll read it tonight and start figuring out what happens next,” I replied.

  We called it our antiphonal novel. I like interesting words, and antiphonal usually describes a song where alternate lines or verses are sung by two choirs opposite one another. Kind of like a two-party musical conversation, or a freestyle rap battle without the attitude. Back and forth. That’s what we were doing with our novel: She’d write a chapter and then I’d respond with a chapter. Back and forth. And it was my turn, again.

  The bell sounded just as Ms. Davenport strode through my classroom door for the second time that day. I watched as she wrote her surname on the board.

  “You’re going to like her,” I whispered to Alli. “She’s got inky fingers, too.”

  Alli nodded, raising an eyebrow.

  “Hello, fresh-faced literature lovers and storytellers. Apologies for my tardiness. I’m still learning the labyrinthine corridors of this school. Now that I know where we gather, I’ll not be late again.”

  She did a modified version of the Ms., not Mrs., Miss, or Mr. thing that she’d done in homeroom that morning. We all nodded. Ms. it is.

  “Ah, and nice to see you again, Mr. Coryell. How fortuitous that we open and close our day in one another’s company,” she said.

  I was surprised and a little chuffed that she somehow already knew my name. I seemed to have been infected with her formal speaking style, for I answered simply with “Indeed.”

  Alli glanced my way with quizzical all over her face.

  Ms. Davenport started the seating plan around the room and then faced us from the front.

  “How many of you are avid readers?”

  Nearly every student in the class raised a hand.

  “Splendid. Now, how many of you actually have a novel in your backpack right now?”

  Fewer hands were raised, but Alli’s and mine were among them.

  “Excellent. Finally, how many of you need literature to live?”

  This time, only two hands were in the air, and you can guess whose they were.

  Alli and I looked at one another and I felt warm all over. I think the right word might be flushed.

  “I’m glad,” Ms. Davenport said. “I fall into that last demographic grouping myself. Okay, who knows where Thessalon is?”

  I looked around. Exactly zero hands were raised.

  “Let me enlighten you. I grew up in Thessalon, Ontario, on the Trans-Canada Highway, a little more than six hundred kilometres from Toronto. It’s on the north shore of Lake Huron, just before you hit Lake Superior. Not much go
es on in Thessalon, other than a declining timber industry and some tourism. And when I say tourism, almost everyone who visits Thessalon is just passing through on their way to somewhere else. It’s not really a destination as much as a place to fill up your tank or maybe spend a night after a full day of driving.”

  She was just telling us a story, her story, but we were completely engaged.

  “My family owned a small and struggling motel right on the lake, and sometimes we even had overnight guests in some of the rooms.” She paused to see if we’d caught it. A couple of us chuckled. “Yes, friends, that was a modest and clearly inadequate attempt at humour to illustrate just how struggling our motel was, and to see if you were still with me.” She looked at the clock and sighed. “Oh well, I guess I need to pick up the pace a bit. Anyway, by the time I was about twelve years old, I knew every square inch of land in every direction within the radius I could cover in a day’s bike ride. I was an only child and there weren’t too many kids my own age in the area, so I was by myself much of the time. And for plenty of reasons I’ll not go into here, it was just better for me to stay away from the motel as much as I could. Don’t worry, it was nothing too serious. So when school was out in the summer, I spent a lot of time on my bike, bored and alone.”

  She paused and scanned the room. It was quiet. Most of us were paying attention, and those who weren’t were quiet. Alli appeared riveted and never took her eyes off Ms. Davenport.

  “Then I was saved. One summer morning when I was about to set off for the day, a strange-looking vehicle drove past the motel, heading into town. It looked like an old school bus, but it wasn’t. It was brand-spanking-sparkling-new and freshly painted. On its side I read, Sault Ste. Marie Public Library Bookmobile. A happy and friendly-looking cartoon character shaped like a book with arms, legs, and a face smiled back at me from the tail end of the bookmobile as it drove down the highway.”

  She kind of assumed the shape of a book and moved her arms and legs to mimic the character on the back of the bookmobile. We laughed.

  “I didn’t know it then, but my life changed in that instant.”

  She paused for dramatic effect and looked at her students, most of whom were leaning forward and waiting to hear the rest.

  “At that time, nearly half a century ago, there was no library in Thessalon. I’d only ever seen our sad, neglected, and minuscule school library, and I’d read nearly every book in it. So I pedalled after that bookmobile like my life depended on it. And it might well have. I prayed it would stop in town and not drive right through back to the Sault, about an hour’s drive northwest. It didn’t take long before I lost sight of it ahead of me. I was fast, but a bike is no match for a bookmobile with a well-tuned diesel engine. Still, I kept pedalling.

  “I found it parked in front of the Algoma District municipal building. A couple of kids were piling onto the bus as I skidded my bike to a rather impressive fishtailing stop, so I followed them in. I didn’t emerge for about an hour and a half. The young student who was staffing the bookmobile helped me find wonderful novels, most of which I can still remember to this day. I could take out up to five books at each weekly visit the bookmobile made to my town.”

  She paused with a faraway look in her eye, then shook her head and resumed her story.

  “Through those books I travelled the world, laughed and cried, learned about life, good and evil, right and wrong. I came to understand how the power of words and stories could leave you transfixed, transported, and transformed. This may sound a tad melodramatic, but to me, the bookmobile was the weekly medication that kept me sane. Without it, I wouldn’t be teaching English or Writer’s Craft today. I might still have been a phys ed teacher, given my brute strength and obvious athleticism—that was another attempted joke, in case there’s any confusion—but I wouldn’t be standing at the front of this particular class.”

  She took a breath and sat on the front of her desk.

  I could tell out of the corner of my eye that Alli was as entranced as I was. I sensed a few students at the back were restless, but they’d almost certainly signed up for this course thinking it would be an easy credit. I loved what Ms. Davenport was saying, and I think she could tell. I was staring at her with such intensity, clinging to every word before she’d finished enunciating them. So, it seemed, was Allison. Ms. Davenport was speaking to us, to Alli and me. And we were spellbound.

  “This is Writer’s Craft. Some of you may wish to become writers, to make a life by writing. That is a noble calling. Writing our stories is important. Our own literature is part of what defines our country and sustains our culture. But it’s not easy. It’s a tough slog. But something this essential, something this crucial, shouldn’t be easy.”

  I looked at Alli. She sensed my gaze and turned to me. Her eyes were wide. Then she fixed her eyes again on Ms. Davenport. I did, too.

  “Just think of it for a moment,” Ms. Davenport said. “You’re creating something from absolutely nothing but what’s floating around in your head and your heart. It is an extraordinary achievement to place words on a blank page in such a way that, when read, the reader is moved. Is inspired. Is empowered. Is changed. No visual cues, no sound effects, no musical score, no sight gags, no breathtaking vistas, no CGI, just printed words on a white page. Now, that is the power, the challenge, the beauty, and the purity of the written word. And that’s what this class is all about.”

  Wow, I thought. Powerful and perfectly put. I looked again at Alli—I found it hard not to—but her eyes were riveted on Ms. Davenport. The room was very quiet.

  “Writing is hard, but it improves with practice, just like most endeavours. So we’re going to write in this class, every day. You can write whatever you want, as long as there’s a story in it. Memoir, short stories, non-fiction, personal essays, even a novel. The choice is yours. The only rule is that the words must move me and move your classmates. The words must count, every one of them. They must be carefully chosen and strung together with passion, purpose, power, and polish. What device did I just employ?”

  Allison’s hand shot into the air. “Alliteration,” I blurted out. Ms. Davenport ignored me and pointed at Allison.

  “Alliteration,” she said.

  “Bingo!” said Ms. Davenport. “Clearly your overly eager colleague, Mr. Coryell, is afflicted with premature alliteration,” she said. At least some of the class chuckled. “Alliteration is just one of many, many literary devices you have at your disposal to help your words grab a reader by the throat and not let go. Hmmm, perhaps a less violent metaphor might be more appropriate in a temple of higher learning, but you know what I mean.”

  Allison and I nodded in unison.

  “Okay, I think I’ve droned on enough. Let’s do some writing.”

  She wrote a few different writing prompts on the board, then wandered the room while we all wrote. A few kids asked for clarification about the exercise and she responded patiently. With about ten minutes to go in the class, she picked a few students at random to read their work. Neither Alli nor I was chosen.

  “All right, we’re about out of time,” Ms. Davenport said. “Your first mission, should you choose to accept it—and I suggest you do, as it will eventually be submitted and marked—is to think about the story you want to tell. Don’t worry about the form yet, just the story. Your homework is to jot down the key points and be ready to discuss them next class if called upon. And I also want to know what novel you’re currently reading. And if you’re not reading one right now, you’d better be by next class. You’ll thank me for it. I can even suggest some titles if you like. Until then, as one famous writer once said, ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow.’ ”

  “Okay, I’ve got to bolt,” I said to Alli outside the classroom. “I’ll pick you up at 6:15 and we’ll subway it down to Harbourfront. That gives us plenty of time to make it for 7:30.”

  “Great. I’m so excited about seeing him tonight. But I’m also a little nervous.”

  “Me too.�
��

  By the time I stopped at my locker and then made my way back down to the gym, Scott, Ahmed, and Eric were already there. They had their arms extended horizontally and Ms. Davenport was wielding a tape measure with the practised movements of a veteran extremity-measurer.

  “Mr. Coryell, good of you to come,” she said.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I replied and sat down at a desk.

  “Okay, gents, you can lower your arms. That was the last measurement I needed,” she said. “You are free to go, and I shall report if anything noteworthy emerges from your numbers. Thank you for indulging my curiosity and donating your time and extremities in the pursuit of science. I’m grateful.”

  The three guys gathered their stuff quickly and headed for the door while Ms. Davenport crunched numbers at her desk. Eric turned to me on his way out and used his index finger to etch crazy-circles in the air next to his temple.

  “Just give me a moment, Mr. Coryell,” she said, her fingers flying on what looked like an ancient pocket calculator that was too gargantuan to fit in any pocket I’d ever seen.

  With a cheap ballpoint, she wrote down various numbers in a table she’d created. I could see Ahmed, Eric, and Scott’s names listed in the first column. Then she opened the journal article she’d been reading during our morning phys ed class, her eyes darting from the journal to her handwritten table.

  “Yes, yes, okay, right, yes, yes, okay. Right, then. Nothing interesting here,” she said, lifting her eyes to me. “So we come to you, Mr. Coryell. Could you stand for me, please?”

  I did as she asked. “I really liked what you said in Writer’s Craft,” I said, just to make conversation. I was feeling nervous. “I’m looking forward to the class, and I know Allison is, too.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Coryell,” she replied. “Now, could you extend your arms from your body at ninety degrees, please?”

  She began measuring away—my forearm and whole arm, my overall height, my leg, my torso from the waist to the top of my shoulders, my waist to the top of my head, the length of my shin up to the kneecap, and then from my kneecap to my waist. She even measured the length of each finger.